


The Godfather Friend

by Aethelar



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Dark!Graves, M/M, Mafia AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8870464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: Getinthefuckingjaeger asked:
Psst Graves is the Godfather friend. The "i wanna try to comfort you but im not good with emotions so hey how bout you drop some names and I'll make them dissappear".





	

_ohmigod i love you_

Because let’s switch things up. To me, Graves is a man who loves his city and lives for his people, and I’ve always followed that up with his dedication to truth and justice and the law. Graves is man who believes in right and wrong, things which should be done and things which should be stopped, legal and illegal. Look at Tina and how much she struggles with the concept of _illegal but morally right_  - and maybe she got that from somewhere, and maybe she got that from Graves.

Except.

Except.

Graves loves his city and lives for his people. The other people? Cardboard dolls in a meaningless world, irrelevant pieces on the sidelines of a show they weren’t invited to watch. He believes in right and wrong, he sorts things into things that need doing and things that need terminating, and he acknowledges that there’s a legal and an illegal but really that’s just the public face of what MACUSA can endorse. If it’s right, then it’s right. If it needs doing, it’ll be done. The law just determines whether he does it in the name of the law, or whether he… doesn’t.

It’s a simple concept. It keeps the streets clean. The American wizarding community was born riddled with criminals, murderers and thieves fleeing the laws of the old word for the freedom of the new - this is a fact. MACUSA was founded to rid the continent of the Scourers and restore order to an orderless chaos - this is also a fact. Gondulphus Graves was one of the twelve founding aurors, and this is the third fact.

Gondulphus Graves knew crime and he knew how to deal with criminals. This was why President Jackson recruited him. The Graves family became influential in politics, sure, and the sons and daughters of Gondulphus’ line were canny leaders and fierce with or without a wand in their hand, sure, but they were recruited because they knew how to bring order to an orderless chaos and they did. They did so with extreme prejudice and a trail of blood that MACUSA quietly pretended did not exist.

By the time you get to Seraphina Picquery and Percival Graves, it’s entirely possible that MACUSA believed the lie. This Graves is more subtle than his ancestor, after all, and he prefers to leave a hungry silence in place of a trail of blood. A wisp of shadow, curling around the doorway - a spatter of ink on the alleyway steps. You could walk right past the signs and never know, but the criminal underworld lives in fear of the black death’s freezing touch. They know. MACUSA’s aurors are taught to believe in the law and believe in justice and truth and believe in the rightness of the world and they do. They do, and Tina does, because they work in the light of day with the cases that are easy to judge and the moral calls that are never too grey to make. Graves prowls the mottled shadows at their heels and keeps them safe, his auror department, because Gondulphus Graves was asked to make MACUSA the heroes and Percival Graves continues the family trade.

You think Grindelwald could just waltz in and take this? Layers of deception that whisper like lies in Graves’ every step, a line of dead that stretch to hell and back following their piper through the alleys of his kingdom - you think _Grindelwald_  could have taken this? Graves stepped back as it pleased him to do, hunted the edges of the path Grindelwald thought he’d made and smiled tiger-soft at each muddling step the dark lord took towards his end.

When Grindelwald is arrested, it’s Graves who is welcomed back with relieved applause. When Grindelwald blows his chances, it’s Graves who takes Credence’s hand and leads him into the dark. When Grindelwald hisses threats at the man with an army in his suitcase, it’s Graves who kisses the man's palm and promises to keep him safe.

The obscurial is fragile, a spider-web of fractures waiting to break, a mire of sharp edges that never healed smooth. Graves pours liquid gold in every crack and remakes him into something beautiful, and he does it with honest words that never hide the ice burning in his smile. Credence needs love, yes, but Credence was given love and taught not to trust it so Graves gives him truth. He shows Credence his empire and he shows Credence the bones of those who oppose him; he shows Credence strength and how it can be used to protect; he shows Credence loyalty and how it’s won through respect that sings like fear in the waiting night.

Credence understands bringing death to those who have brought hurt to you. He understands power and how it surges when his family are threatened. He understands fear and how it never lies like love. Credence was a boy who could have been good and Credence was a boy who wanted to be kind, but Credence is a man who will be great and Credence is a man who shows mercy in death.

You can’t really think that Grindelwald could have taken this from Graves?

The man, though - the chaser, not the seeker, the man with scars down his back and his heart flayed open on his sleeve, Graves is careful to keep the truth from him. He never lies but deception is woven so much tighter than words, and there is something bright in this man that Graves’ shadows would tarnish. He is careful. The man is precious and he is to be protected, and Graves hovers over him and around him until whispers spread through lightning rain - _the black death hunts those who hunt Newt Scamander and there’s a demon feeding off the destruction in his wake._  

Graves gives Newt his creatures. He gives him a girl, Credence’ girl, and he gives him a garden of sun-kissed love. He takes Newt’s hand and leads him forwards, and Credence swirls behind to sweep their footsteps clean, and they’re happy. Modesty has her brother and Newt has his Graves and somewhere on the fringes Tina’s throat is bleeding as she screams warnings that neither of them can hear –

Perhaps not everyone in MACUSA believed the lie, but Graves had more important people to deceive than them.


End file.
